Raven In The Grave

It's easy to take The Raveonettes for granted. Arguably overhyped in their earliest days, the Danish duo were initially lumped in with the post-White Stripes flush of supposed rock revivalists alongside The Hives, Jet and other short-termers. But in reality, Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo were more habitués of the beatnik coffeehouse than the garage: their professed love of Phil Spector and The Shangri-Las was filtered through David Lynch, The Velvet Underground and Psychocandy. The funny thing is, while Wagner and Foo were experimenting with a purely electronic sound somewhat akin to The Knife on their last couple of albums, early gems like Whip It On and Chain Gang of Love turned out to be an underheralded influence on a later crop of hipsters: it's not at all hard to draw a line from those records to the reverb-drenched, decayed beach-pop of Best Coast or Wavves or the neo-shoegazer likes of Crystal Stilts. And so at a point where no one could give less of a crap about Yeah Yeah Yeahs anymore, Raven In The Grave sounds decidedly au courant. Synthesizing their early Richard Gottehrer-directed sound with the electronic textures of Lust Lust Lust, high-quality songs like "Recharge and Revolt" and "Forget That You're Young" are majestic, chilly slices of gothy neo-shoegaze that retain the driving rhythms of their best work. Good stuff from a band that don't get the credit they deserve.